Usually when I drifted off into sleep, my mind was often restless. It always seemed to force me to think about my failures of the day or failures in my past. It was often hard to find a peaceful sleep until finally I forced myself to think of something else. However, tonight when my head hit my pillow, for the first time in a very long time. I drifted off peacefully like driftwood in the water, my consciousness seemed to fade into an endless sea of dark blue water. It was like I was being sucked into a whirlpool, but it wasn’t as violent as movies and shows made it out to be, it was a peaceful feeling. The pressure that I loved from the deep waters surrounded me as I was pulled deeper into this whirling pool of water. As I reached the vortex of this whirlpool, the true eye of this watery storm. I saw a now familiar kraken spirit in the center, its long arms swirling around, she was the cause of this whirlpool.
“Do you want to see?”
I had no idea what she meant but something made me nod my head. Two of her tendrils grapped me and gently pulled me through the center of this vortex. My mind raced as I found myself not on the ship that belonged to Dr. Drakos. But what looked to be the heart of ancient Sparta. The streets were older, pathed with hard stone, I was not looking through my eyes but rather the eyes of a stranger. I could tell it was a she, I knew who it was, not a stranger but a past wielder of my Oscar.
I was looking through Rhea’s, Adonis daughter’s eyes.
Her vision was blurred as I watched a man with light brown hair, lighter skin maybe few shades lighter than mine, in white robe being dragged into what looked to be a place of importance. Long marple pillars that stood in front of a large staircase, an open area where a regal looking woman with long brown hair and creamy skin sat on a throne waiting. Rhea pushed way forward only to be stopped by four armed guards in classic sparta armor, equipped with shields and spears. “My Queen, please hear my words, listen to my wisdom like you have done before. My father would never do what is he is being accused of.”
The woman looked up, her eyes tired and filled with malice and hatred. She ignored Rhea, choosing to address Adonis. “Adonis, you stand here today being accused of crimes against our nation. Crimes that have gotten my husband and the brave warriors of Sparta killed in battle. You gave the Persians the information needed to get through the narrow pass. Did you or did you not?”
Rhea’s eyes were drawn towards her father. He stood strong and proud and while he was covered in bruises and blood ran freely down his forehead and over his eyes. He showed no sigh of fear, I was sure that only a few could see the powerful deep brown colored aura spilling off him. “I have done no crime. I am accused by a witch.” Her eyes followed her father, onto a woman that looked very familiar to me. She was the statue that had been uncovered by Dr. Drakos’s daughter. She was shorter than Imagined, clad in white silk, her dress looking like it had been freshly made. “That woman, wants nothing but evil, hatred for me and my daughter! And you are fool to believe her web of lies.”
“Please Queen Gorgo, my father was a friend to your husband and our king. What use would it be for him to turn traitor and give our warriors away to that mad man in the east. He stayed behind to protect you under your husband's orders, what does he get if your husband dies. Nothing, you rule Sparta in his absence!”
My heart was sinking as I listened her pleads for mercy and understandance. She moved forward but than stepped back as one of these armed soldiers held a spear at her stomach. “My queen,” that other woman. She was letting off a bright white aura, around her neck her netrix gemstone hung proudly. Though it was cracked and in the shape of a spider of some kind. “My lady,” she spoke stepping forward onto the stage. “My web has never been wrong, I have given our people great information on spies and rats in our home. I heard from the Greeks that Adonis was offered the throne, if our king was to fall. A man with so much knowledge only wants power in the end. Knowledge and power rule this world and with both he would be unstoppable. It is why I made sure my web kept it’s many eyes on him.”
Four people came forward and while I couldn’t understand it, I knew they were lying. Baring false witness against this man. “Queen Gorgo I am begging you, that witches web can be made into anything she wants. She has been wrong before! What reason do we have to think she is right now? Even her first information about the force coming our way was wrong. She claimed only 20 thousand, The King of Persia marched with nearly 100 thousand!”
“My web corrected.”
“No I did, I corrected her information!” Rhea demanded. “My family has served this kingdom for generations, why would we stop now.”
“Servants always want to be masters in the end!”
“ENOUGH!” Both woman went silent as Queen Gorgo raised her voice. “Adonis, you have been a friend for a long time, but you kept things from me and my husband. Knowledge about a power that you claim we can’t understand, this jepei or whatnot. One lie is enough to make me not trust you at your word, but you are still a Spartan. A brilliant man, but a warrior at heart. So I give you a warriors choice, either you can fight my legion of warriors here and die as a warrior, or I let you rot in prison when you will never see the light of day.”
“My queen please.”
The woman held her hand up. “Choose, Adonis.”
My eyes locked onto her father, her vision blurred from tears. “I fight and die, like any spartan would. Bring your worst, and when I win. I want her head.” He declared looking at that vile woman who simply held a smirk on her face.
My vision changed as I found myself in a cool building. I was kneeling on the ground or rather Rhea was kneeling on the grond, her hands gripping the bars of Adonis cell. The man looked to be in his 50s or even 60s. “Listen to me my daughter, my death is near. But I will fight to give you a chance to escape, head to Egypt with my riches, and follow the steps to the land of the Isrealites. There you will find what I spent my life trying to protect, do not let that witch get her hands on my knowledge.”
“I can’t,” Rhea whispered.
“You must, now go before her spies get you killed as well.” The old man reached out and wiped a hand against Rhea’s brow. “My precious one, use your gift well, and you will find my allies.”
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“Xaiver!” I shot up from my bed in a daze, my cheek stinging like I had been slapped. I looked up, and found Olivia standing above my bed, her hand starting to lower to her side.
“What is wrong?” I asked as my senses slowly were coming back to me. I rested a hand on my stinging cheek. “And why did you slap me?!”
“Thalia was shot and we are under attack!”
It took me a moment to truly process her words. However, I could hear the panic coming from above deck and I wasted little time getting to my feet. I followed Olivia up the stairs to the top deck, and as I went I found Thalia laying on the ground, a nasty looking arrow stuck in her chest. A bit of blood dripped from her mouth. Her eyes fluttered open and closed as a woman commanded her to stay awake!
When I reached the deck, I could hear screaming and the clattering of weapons crashing against each other. I could see two fights had broken out across the deck. Both Daniel and Dr. Drakos anger could be felt across the boat, I saw Daniel fighting the boy with the evently long needle like blade, and Dr. Drakos was engaged in combat with the larger man from before. “What do you want me to do?” I asked Olivia as she summoned her long three sectioned staff.
“We will handle this,” she said, but she nodded towards the ship that had moved closer to us, maybe a hundred yards. “How about you go do what Krakens do best, and sink that fucking ship.”
“With pleasure.” I said, before rushing over and jumping off the edge. I twisted a bit as a shining bright pink arrow barely missed my head by a few inches. I was guessing it belonged to that annoying girl with the osprey spirit. Which also meant she was the one that had shot Thalia, and I could only hope that poor girl was not dead.
“We should have guess this would happen!” I snapped at myself as I quickly summoned Oscar out of his gemstone. “I’m so stupid, why would we just let them park their boat 300 yards from us and expect this wouldn’t have happened.”
“No time to dwell on what we should have done,” Oscar said. As he slowly rose from the water extending his long tendrils. “Right now we are sinking a boat.” Oscar sent both of his tendrils out towards the large vessle wrapping them around it. I swam forward as fast I could before leaping out of the water and onto the deck. I had all four of my extra arms out, and I had two spears out as well. As soon as I landed on the deck, I had to hold both my spears up in front of me as Helena Blackthorn sped forward like she was gliding on air and slammed the tip of a curved scimitar into my spears.
“You're the one, with the kraken spirit correct?” She asked with a mix of a smirk and glare on her face. She then jumped backward as Oscar made a wild grasp towards her with one of his tendrils. “Tell your spirit to let go of my boat, before I decided to get mean.”
“You choose to hurt my friend.” I said spinning my hooked spears a bit before turning them towards Helena. “So no disrespect, but I am destroying what I need to, so you all can’t come after us.”
Helena was dressed in black pajama pants, her hair tied up in a neat bun. She let out a tired sounding yawn before speaking. “Abigail, go and get what I want, and finish off Thalia.” I looked up as from the top of the ship. That pink-haired brat leapt off the top and onto the back of her osprey spirit.
“No you,” I went to throw one of my hooked spear towards her but Helena kicked my arm with amazing strength forcing me to throw my spear a bit wider than I planned.
She made a few tisk noises. “Come on, now, Xaiver was it. You don’t get to hurt her that easily.” She was on me within a second her blades slashing through the air around me as I was forced to duck. My spears were meant for long to medium range combat, she seemed determined to keep me at short range so I couldn’t be at my best. However, my longer weapons gave me better defense from her blades, and I had another safety net with my four other arms. I could move my spears faster and at angles some masters could not get. I had six arms in total, and with those six, I could attack high, low, in large arches or short ones, I could move them in places to keep me safe. I had a slight advantage with this. I could take grip of my spears with one or multiple hands and could strike with far more strength and speed to them than one might think.
However, I also had a big blue beast that was here as well. While Oscar was focusing all his strength on trying to crack this ship's metal hull. It was smaller than our own but even than it was still a struggle for Oscar. While animal spirits could interact with metal objects it was not easy for them. If this ship was made of wood, he might have snapped it in two by now. However, he had two of his tentacles free and was trying to swipe at her or grab her. However, she was far quicker than she looked and using her wolf headed curved blades, she would leap up and slash his tentacles spending pain running through my own arms as if i had been struck. She hadn’t summoned her scarred wolf spirit, but I was still on guard in case she did.
As we clashed blades again and I found myself leaning over the side of this boat as she had me pinned. Her confident older smirk turned into a pained expression, as I landed blow after blow to her exposed stomach. I had four arms, each pounding away at her stomach as she had gotten too close. She backed up a bit, giving me time to grab the railing with two of my other hands and pull myself up and slam my feet into her chest sending her flying backwards. She rolled back to her feet and stood tall, her chin held proudly up. Though just seeing her grip her stomach with an arm was sending waves of confidence running through my body.
“Those arms of yours, are painfully annoying. I have heard of users of squids, octopus and jellyfish users gaining extra arms, even some insect users can summon extra ones. But never as many as you have brought out.” She looked over her shoulder towards Oscar, I could hear the sound of metal closing in on it’s self and I could feel just how much power he was putting into this. “And I can see where you are getting this strength from.” She added before turning her dark red eyes onto me, her’s being a few shades darker than Daniel’s. Her braid bun of hair had come onto sending it spilling down her shoulders like freshen woven ropes. “Tell me Xaiver, why are you all doing what you are doing?”
“I am currently fighting you.”
That got a long roll of her eyes in return. “I meant, foolish boy, what are you doing in this city? Why risk so much just to sink my ship, well try to sink it? Why are you and friends even here to begin with?”
“I don’t need to answer that.” I declared as I stepped forward towards her. Keeping my spears locked onto her just in case she tried to move.
Helena lowered herself down in a sort of crouch, she started tapping her blades against the deck of this ship filling the air with a sharp tapping noise. She swayed her head to her beat occasionally giving false charges, like a wolf threatening to pouch on its prey. “Come on, Xavier let’s have a chat and maybe talk about a few things. You aren’t like that hot headed brat who tried to chop my head off, you're not like the brute of the Hearthstone family. Nor like that doctor and his disrespectful daughter.”
I sent one of my spears forward only only for her jump out of the way. That damned tapping noise she was making was starting to irritate my ears, and not knowing when she was gonna truly strike was sending fear running though my veins. “Stop talking,” I demanded through gritted teeth. “You don’t know a damn thing about me!”
“Oh I think I know everything that I need to know about your group, and what you are truly here for.” All I did was blink and in that moment she had moved from her crouch and was standing right in front of me. Both of her blades held out going for my chest. I stabbed one of my spears into the ground and swung around with two of my other arms just in time to dodge. I shot out with another one of my spears only for her to dodge. She climbed up onto the railing of this ship and once again crouched down. “I am wolf user, and my weapon gave me amazing senses, especially how to read people. To know who is the strongest and the weakest. Who has a leveled head and who would be quick to fly off the handle. Who can handle themselves in a true battle, and who cannot.”
“Get to the point!” I swung both my spears out in a deadly arch. One going high and the other going low to try and catch her off guard. However, she surprised as she twisted through the attack and as soon as her feet hit the railign she pushed outwards and slammed into me like a cannonball. I lost my footing and fell to the ground with a loud thud, she lifted both her blades high and before I could fully react. Pain filled my body as she cut through all four of my extra arm making them explode into shards of blue jepei aura. I lost one of my spears in the process and managed to hold up my second spear as she then brought down both of her blades once more. A small shockwave of dark red and blue jepei aura exploded as her amplified attack met my heavily protected one. Shards of my protection aura began to fly off around me as she kept slamming her blades down onto my only protective shield of aura over and over again!
Than pain exploded in my leg and a loud yell escaped my lips. I never noticed that in her last attack, she lifted only one of her blades up to slam a top of my weapon. With the other she had reached back and stabbed me in the leg! “Do you wanna talk now?!” She screamed at me. A burning pain filled my right leg as she twisted her blade. I felt like I was in pure agony as it seemed to slide against my bone, and I could smell that coppery smell of blood. The pain was so much that I had let go of my spear for a moment and her next attack sent it flying out of my hands. My screams grew even louder as she stabbed her other blade through my right shoulder!
I had been shot before, I had been beaten with many things. However, that was so long again, I hadn’t been in this much pain in a very long time. My entire vision went black for a moment but I forced myself to come back. I tried to open my mouth to either speak or scream once more but all that came out was a bit of blood. I didn’t dare try to move, even a centimeter sent waves of agony flowing through my shoulder and leg, sending ripples of fire hot pain rushing out through the rest of my body. “Now I didn’t want to do that, Xavier.”
She stood up from over me. The front of her pajamas covered in blood, I was disgusted as she lifted a hand to lips and even licked off the blood that had splattered onto her hands. “Honestly, teenages can be so stubborn, while my family are causing trouble. We could have sat here, had some tea maybe, cocoa perhaps and just talked things, but instead you choose to prove my assumptions right. You are a good fighter, maybe a few levels above decent, but that is all you are, you rely so much on protecting what you can see, that you don’t even think about attacks coming from behind. You have such a strong body, but don’t truly know how to use it. Good at probably many things, but not great at anything.”
“Y-You,” I began summoning the strength to speak. “Y-You don’t know a damn thing about me.”
“I know a lot of things.” I screamed again as she tore her blades out of my leg and shoulder letting my blood run freshly. “WHich is why I am here, cause I am gonna finish what my far dead Grandmother started.” Now that I was looking up at Helena. I wish I had seen it before. She looked so similar to the long time foe of Rhea, the woman that had caused Adonis’s death in the first place. “And find what was hidden at the long time broken tower.” She jumped out of the way as two of Oscar’s suckers came down and carefully lifted me up. I bit my lip to try and hold back my screams but it just didn’t work that well. “Goodbye, little boy.” Helena's voice rang through the air as I let the tears I was holding back fall. She then said one more thing that sent pure fear running through my body. “And tell Sarah that I haven’t forgotten about her.”
“What?!” I asked dragging myself to look down at her one last time before OScar removed himself from around the ship and dragged me underwater with him. She was smiling at me and then something happened, another memory filled my head. Something that Sarah had told me a year after we were reunited. When I had joined her in a counseling session to help her stay calm. “Mean woman, she took me away, had me read greek things, had a wolf that bit me… don’t make me talk about her anymore.”
Before I was fully taken under the water. My eyes expanded from pure rage. I looked at not only the ancestor of a woman that had killed a previous user of the kraken, but also the woman who probably hurt Sarah to the point she is what she is now. My projection aura exploded around me in pure rage. “I WILL KILL YOU! YOU HEAR ME!” For a moment it was not only my voice that ran out, but also the voice of that ancient kraken spirit as well. “I WILL KILL YOU!”
That was a promise I would keep.
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“Come on, wake up, Xavier.” My eyes began to slowly flutter back open, I realized that I was not in the waters of the ocean anymore, nor was I on the boat. Matter of fact, I was laying on a bed in an all white room. “Thank God.” I turned over to the right and I saw Olive was sitting at my bedside. Her head had a white bandage wrapped around it but other than that she looked fine.
“Olive,” I said, trying to sit up but her hands came to rest on my chest to keep me down. “Where am I?” I asked with a grimmance as pain started to flow through my shoulder once more. I looked over to the right and white my shoulder was it was wrapped up in clean bandages. The pain was still red hot to me.
“A hospital in Athenas.” Olive explained quickly reaching over to grab some pills for me. “Here, you need to take these.”
I nodded my head as I swallowed these two pills and my face heated up as she titled my head back so I sip on some water. “What happened?”
“It’s my fault, I should have never sent you over there to try and sink their ship. I was foolish.” Olive answered, her brown eyes sparkling with a few tears. “I am sorry, you are injured because of my judgment.”
“Hey now,” I said, reaching out with a long arm and boldly wiping a few tears away. She looked surprised and her round cheeks flushed pink. “You didn’t hurt me, I chose to go and fight. It’s my fault for getting my ass kicked.” As a few memories began to fill my head, only one name came to mind. “What happened to Thalia?”
Olive’s face saddened a bit more. “She is alive… for now. That arrow went deep into her chest, nearly hitting her heart. She lost a lot of blood, right now they are waiting for a boy to come to the hospital. They found someone close that can share his blood with hers so she can get her strength back.”
“Where is Daniel?”
“He won’t leave her room.” Olive sighed once more. “Not until, he is sure that she is gonna be just fine. I think he is with Dr. Drakos right now.”
“I would love to see him,” I said with a forced smile. “At least show him that I am okay.” I got a bit more serious as I stated. “I need to see Dr. Drakos and Daniel right now actually. There were a lot of things that happened on that ship. Helena Blackthorn is the distant relative of the woman that had Rhea and Adonis killed. She is looking for something that was at the tower of babel wreckage.” My hands tightened into fists as I than added. “Also I think she might be after Sarah… I think she was the one that hurt my friend so much.”
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